Dammit. At the dry lips stage of a cold. not much more than sniffling, a bit bunged up and coughing though (not too many coughing fits, thank the FSM). Fingers crossed it doesn't get any worse before weekend.

Any recs on desktop twitter apps? currently trialling ada which I think is definitely missing some. however, I want it as minimalist as possible, along the lines of tweets60 for mobile - not interested in interfacing with facebook or screencapping the page.

Gah. Deodorant makers, why do you not make travel-sized versions?

http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_startrek/980383.html - posted on there because of the Zoe Saldana, but lookit who's next to her in that walking shot....

Idris Elba and your very favourite person. Right, I'll take Idris, you take JDM, and we can share Zoe, deal?

Ever since got smartphone, have found self wanting to write a completely self-indulgent fic where someone with one goes back to, say, the sixties or seventies (when they had the beginnings of computers so could at least get the concept) and lo, the fandom character marvels.

...And then I remember someone already wrote one. In man from U.N.C.L.E. fandom. A few years back, before cameras were common. :sulks: it's just that now you have touchscreen and files and apps and 3g and wi-fi, so you could use it to tap into radio signals, read uv things, translate...

Not to mention it's not completely obvious until it's turned on what it is, unlike the phones with keys.

(re-read Why Does Hollywood hate Ireland, a rather fabulous rant) According to Hollywood :

Irish :
rural
poor
still stuck in the 1930s
romantic as hell.

Scots :
kilts
castles
rural

Wales :
Doesn't exist.

English :
We're lucky. lots of stereotypes. none are accurate.
Hugh Grant (added rural , emotionally stifled, boarding schools.)
Evil but sophisticated and intelligent.
tourist postcard of London - royals and buses.
Chim-chimeny, mary Poppins.

Did I miss anything?

Watched Pathfinder last night (intensely violent but rather nicely shot and good to while away the time Karl urban = Viking kiddy raised by Native Americans who has to fight them off when the next batch comes a-calling). Pretty good. Wouldn't necessarily watch again, but good performances, doesn't talk down to anyone, has a not-quite expected ending and everyone is actually using their *brain*. (and of course the vikings are rapacious violent amoral bastards, what do you think this is? Fair? but they're *articulate* bastards) Plus lots of wee!karl Urban in a loincloth. No bad here. Vikings were talking in what I think was swedish since it sounded similar to the swedish used in True Blood. But I could be wrong and it's Norwegian. As ever, still a bit amazed at how much I was able to decipher (yay for common language roots! I do wonder how much French we'd be able to understand if it wasn't for enforced lessons at school.). Though would like to see the film it's based on for comparison, Ofelas which is Lapps rather'n native americans.

Mesh top for Pris arrived. Only thing is it's large rather than medium as I ordered, even though it still fits. Problem is, what kind of feedback should I leave? 'fast postage but er... the wrong size. But I'm keeping it.'

Listened to Legally Blonde soundtrack. So horribly, horribly catchy. Still confused why they didn't use 'So Much Better' on Children In Need as that's the one they're using to advertise it on the web.

:whines: why do fasteners, aka the most fiddly thing in this universe, all have to be sewn by hand? I'm sure there's a machine out there to do it, but it's probably industrial... 16 poppers for dress last night. two. sodding. hours.

Cold appears to be staying at 'blowing nose and occasional coughs'. GOOD.

oh, woot. I has caught the cold that was going round the department. The occasional cough of yesterday is now full bore strewing my way with tissues (or rather my store of coffee and sandwich shop napkins). Fortunately not at groggy stage yet. Fingers crossed it doesn't a) develop into flu and b) buggers off by friday.

Drinking lemon and ginger tea. I hate lemon and ginger tea. (tastes in combination are fine, just not as tea) Oh well. at least it's not the Durian sweets (actually more like a paste) that ming fed us at the pubmeet. And yes, Durian deserves all the bad reputation it has garnered. Holding your nose DOES NOT WORK.

Pubmeet was silly, fun, and included a Good Omens casting round. With 'wistful if only' codicils but rules were very firmly 'Who's available *now*'. Paul Bettany was very quickly confirmed as Crowley. 'There are others...' 'Paul Bettany.' 'I was thinking...' 'Paul Bettany.' we didn't really settle on Aziraphale though Kenneth Branagh and a few others were tossed into the ring. War, also not settled. Anathema Device considered v. difficult. Famine? 'Robert Downey Jr. Look, it's the beard!' '...Damn you.' Pollution? 'er... needs to be really fade into the background. Martin Freeman? He does always play everyman...'

Segued at one point into True Blood and Thor, with me sulking about the fact that Alexander Skarsgaard wasn't cast, as hello, viking, and I really can't see Thor as cornfed. Cue Steve going 'don't mind her, she has a thing for blonds.' 'Lies!' 'Last three shags. This list of your shallow moments.' 'The evidence is stacking up, Heather.' '...Dammit.'

Watched Merlin last night. it was squee and joy making and... the writers have been reading the fic again. I spotted at least three non-smut fic preoccupations in there, with exactly the same outcomes/actions as the fic. Rather impressed that there was such a huge amount of slash in what was supposed to be a het-focussed ep. And awwwww, Merlin needs more romance. So. Cute. Though I am glaring at the writers for wrongly labelling the monster of the week.

ETA: how to know you have a cold. you get the pepperami panini that says it has jalapenos in it because you'll be able to taste it. You eat and go 'huh, pleasantly spicy'. Peel back bread. find it's stuffed with jalapenos like they were rocket...

Yay! I have crossed the line! Story is complete! (well, apart from the shipwreck bits, but i'm leaving those for the next few days.)

I CAN WATCH TV AGAIN! I CAN READ FIC! I... might even get some more sleep. Nah.

Also, I have to sew the fasteners on the straps of my 300 dress.

just under 90%. Oh yes. I rule. Final act, closing in... Though, er, I'm still poking my brain to write the damn shipwreck bits.

Woke up this morning with a slight writer-wibble. I'm trying to figure out if my original characters are really samey and have the same dialogue patterns (for those who've read my originals, please be honest). I've been told I'm fairly decent at writing in-character dialogue for certain of my chosen fandom characters, but this could of course be entirely down to self-selection.

and sometime soon, I'll shut up about nano and go back to my usual angsting about fic that takes two years for me to actually produce. Mind you, in looking back through old nano data, found two bunnies that look rather interesting - the QAF valet fic and the 'Ianto Jones is seconded to Torchwood 3 a good while before Canary Wharf.' (him being reckoned a stooge of Yvonne Hartman, of course, and thus untrustworthy. The bunny is now far more interesting since we've since found out precisely how Ianto originally got his place at TW3 and got intro'd to his sister.)

OMG. Narnia fans? LOOK AT TODAY's XKCD. Try not to die laughing.

The Stage have a podcast interview up about the Dr Who lost stories (got written, but due to cuts at the BBC, never got made.) that've now been re-done by Big Finish as audio dramas. The Stage podcast are normally pretty good (haven't listened to it yet), and they have them available via itunes, embedded listen or you can get a lower quality mp3 here. (right-click and save)

BTW, for those who want to save mp3s and such things from embedded players on web pages, here's a tip that normally works : right click on a blank bit of the web page, and look for view source/properties/similar, and it'll bring up a text file of code. Search for 'file=' or '.mp3/.mp4/similar file extension' copy the http address after the 'file=' bit, but only as far as the .mp3 bit. (after that it's normally '& ij;iaig[ aid[ihg' - you don't need that, it's the embed code.) Plug that into your browser, and you should get a 'save as' or if you're using firefox, it'll just download.

75%, day 17. I thank you.

:sigh: any ideas of off behaviour I could use as faintly suspicious for the toff who's pretending to be a servant? I want at least a couple of off notes in his behaviour - all I've got currently is that the toff who's his brother talks to him more as a mate than a servant. I can't use the Sherlock Holmes test of, say, appearance of hands because said toff works on the boats and his nominal 'job' includes this, and it's common knowledge that he's only valeting to help out. (and it doesn't help that his accent is different enough that the other servants couldn't tell what was posh or working class for the county he comes from)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/8365494.stm - landslide threatening Local hero village. Bloody clay-based rocks.

Poll #1487113 fannish identity
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 24

Ever changed your fannish id/username?

If you have, did you cut all ties to the old one?

For those who did, how many times have you done it?

Bonus: for those who have, did you just change username but keep your author handle/actual name?

Ticky?

ETA : you know, one day I'm going to see who can name all the ticky quotes. most've these are pretty easy, and admittedly they're all themed, but I do wonder who can actually complete the last one...

This just in from

That's as of last night. 70% on day 16 isn't too bad, right?

Currently on a sort of intermediate scene which looks like it's going to be a lot shorter than I thought it would be. Next up, visit from the Cornish lot which I started because I reckoned I needed more emotional attachment and then realised I didn't have a bit that explained why Dr. Tremayne (Ed's brother, Sam doesn't know this) knew about him and Sam, so that'll be in there... Plus, hey, more Sam freaking out about getting sent to jail for being a bender is good. And for some reason I have a random gratuitous scene of Ed stripping off in front of everyone planned. it's not a bad thing, right? On the other hand, wondering what other off notes I can put in about Ed. So far I've got his extreme mateyness with the Tremaynes (to the extent that the other servants mentioned that Dr. Tremayne has been known to do stuff to Ed just to piss him off and no-one thinks this is odd), the fact that he doesn't have a defined job as a servant (odd-job man/ but mostly works on the family's boats in cornwall, established that he got strong-armed into being the valet for the Home Counties visit), and his laid back-ness.

Rather interested in the way I'm writing this. It's almost all dialogue and scene description, no introspection and rambling or excessive wordiness which is my usual way of coping with nano, and is probably even less than my normal fic. Instead I'm just writing more in the way of dialogue or action every time I start procrastinating (a lot). And because I've no introspection, I've realised that I know very little about my characters (seriously. the only thing I know about Sam, my pov character, at this point is that he's a valet, a bit picky about who he shags, takes pride in his job, has a sister, two cousins died on the way back from the front of flu, and doesn't like reading ghost stories. Most of that came out due to random conversation with other characters. i have no idea about his opinions on anything.). Have bugger all background for them aside from what's on screen. So it's more like watching a tv show unfolding than my usual.

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=7967 - oh, the must-have-it-ness of this t-shirt (image here). have ordered mine in pale blue. Problem is that it's coming from America (damn cafepress) so I don't get my grubby paws on it for a while. :sulk: (btw, it's only available until midnight sunday GMT)

:sigh: I miss tv. All I've seen recently is Merlin and Dr Who, because I'm the kind of person who has problems writing if the tv is playing on the same screen. (also there's the whole issue of me rewinding every time I think I've missed a line of dialogue)

that were nano as of last night. Sex scene #2 today, and Sam's going home from Cornwall (hopefully). Poking the rest of the plot. There's the letters, and I'm going 'err... should there be another Home Counties visit before the second Cornwall visit with the reveal that Ed is a nob?' I want enough emotional attachment to be plausible.

Surprisingly, today is really nice compared to yesterday's storms. (nothing like knowing that looking out the window wondering what's going to go past it this time)

Dr Who today! SQUEE!

Strictly yesterday was deemed 'when injury hits' - Phil's knee was acting up in training, Jade popped her knee at the end of the dress rehearsal, and Leila sprained her ankle - tried to go on, but had to stop halfway due to the pain. Problem now was whether she got through on sympathy from audience. Jade I have no problem with since she has been good. The rest of them are now split between 'fucking hell you can dance' (Ricky and Ali) and 'so *cute*! Please bounce more!' (Natalie and Chris, though natalie's starting to get really good points from judges) Ricky#2's days are numbered and he can see it. Poor lad.

Merlin ( Acting, dammit! )

Gah. lost a day's nano to going to bed about an hour after I got home. Due to that and getting pummeled by the masseur, now feeling considerably better. It's so nice to be able to move my shoulders. (she kept making comments about 'next time, acupuncture!' as she put major pain on my hipbones. Fuck. off. I'm quite happy to have needles stuck in me for medical and decoration reasons, but not for a purpose that has been proved that it doesn't matter *where* you stick the needles) Still, working from home so theoretically should be able to catch up a bit and plot some more today.

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Suicide in the Trenches, Siegfried Sassoon.

yes, I brought it on myself. it's that fabulous lack of sleep headache and wooziness. How to know Nano's really kicked in. Slightly peeved that I could've got a bit more last night but found at the parentals (finally back from holidays in south pacific. bastards.) had left the doors unlocked, windows open, *all* the lights on and the gas fire on. Please FSM let this smoothie work.

I completely deny I bought any more gosh eyeliner. It's not my fault. 3for2 and my mate had picked up 2 already...

The Geek Squad have installed a Stig advent calendar. Oh. Dear.

Supertemp!Sam (no, this is actually his nickname at our work) is back. one of those don't realise how much you miss someone until they turn up several months later. he's been on a 9 month tour of The BFG which got great reviews and paid really well, so he's now looking for work again. Saw one of the managers intro him to someone and rugby tackled him - editor didn't know him and looked a wee bit startled when I rugby tackled and then said 'eee!, don't mind me, speak later, yes?'

nano chugging along fairly smoothly when I manage to convince myself to start writing. Damn procrastination gene.

Okay, it's kinda on target of 2k a day, but really wishing I was writing more to get me well away from any writers' block days.

In other news, feeling faintly dirty for basing the Cornwall town more-or-less exactly on Falmouth, mostly because I'm familiar with it and can describe the geographic coast. or at least the directions for getting to the station - I thought I was going to be vague-ish, but i just stuck a bunch of very, very exact directions / town layout in one sequence, and that includes Arwenack House as the base of the rich cornish family. Technically it's easily wiped since this'll be the only bit where it's mentioned, but loathe to delete any wordcount at this stage. Oh well....

Mentioning locations, I can't believe it took me until Act 2 to realise that Basildon House is bloody perfect (location, size, etc) for basing my Home Counties pile on. After most of the action has left that bloody house. You may not think this is important, but I know that if I'd had its specific layout in my head, i could've put extra details in scenes! Things to look at when the servants were sneaking a fag out the back door! Nobs talking about the bloody great deer park it's in the middle of! More wordiness! :sulk: As it is, Sam will now be lurking in that bit round the back where the gardeners tools are kept when he has to read his letter. BECAUSE I CAN.

oh, and whose bloody idea was it to dramatise Our Mutual Friend in 15-minute chunks on Radio 4? it's a bloody awful length for a classic radio serial since you get very little idea of characters/enough story to keep going, half an hour or an hour is much better. Radio 4 drama people, you know better than this.

Yesterday, made the Queen Gorgo from 300 dress and caught up on wordcount. Just got to make the jewellery and put the fasteners on the straps. For all my grousing about really needing a tailor's dummy, the spirit of Rosie Palm was with me - put a pin in the centre of the ribbon, made sure that was at the back of neck, settled the cloth on my arse, pinned it on one side, pinned it on the other, two minutes of adjustment, doubled the ribbon for strength and keeping the cloth in place, sewed that, and... pretty much done in half an hour.

Front
Back

Really, the straps should be leather, or at least leather-like, and the material should be hemp linen rather than cotton lycra, but this falls correctly (could be looser from the hips), is bloody cheap, easily available and isn't as see-through.

Oh, and for anyone going 'how the hell do you stay in that', the answer on the night will be tit tape and a single pin. You actually need the tit tape and pin to make sure it flashes the flesh, because as the material is clingy and elasticated, its natural state is completely decent and showing off only a bit of cleavage.

I'm rather amused that the 'sexy bought costume' version you can get (google 'gorgo 300' on images), complete with recommended stiletto sandals and bad pout, actually shows *less* flesh than the correct version.

My only real peeve with it is that because I've got a relatively short torso, the second band around the waist looks somewhat redundant.

Hmm. On the other hand, I think I might now have a spare costume for Discworld - random goddess and/or priestess. I could even compete with Laura for the role of Bethan. Why yes, going as the character I'm known for's *mother* is a bit twisted. It's Sir Terry's fault. There's only so many named curvy blondes* in Discworld, and pretty much my only other option is to start donning armour. To which I respond 'On August Bank Holiday? HOW many layers? With the running around I do? Are you MAD?'

Oh, and finally found the supplier of my deodorant in a pot that smells nice and doesn't give me a rash by ... er... looking on the label. : Cornish Soapcakes. Comes in woody or citrus, lasts at least six months. Phew. Was resigned to only being able to get it when I made my pilgrimage to the Eden Project.

*There are very few named blondes in Discworld. All the others are specifically stated as flat-chested or anorexic.

After shopping for socks and superheroine undies (clearly a hit for topshop, considering how long they've been selling them - and you can now get a Wonder woman bra. Sadly, Topshop doesn't cater for those with big boobs or tiny backs.) Bumped into Adrian and gossed a bit - apparently neither of us knew the other lived in Reading. 'How long've you lived here?' :self makes gesture around waist level, which is true since I remember coming up to my dad's waist when I was 5: Failed in finding a boob tube or sleeveless bodice-type top. came home, curled up in front of Merlin and Strictly. merlin was fab, although sadly continuing this season's thing for giving Morgana bugger all lines, Charles Dance chewed scenery like a pro, and everyone in Strictly was upping their game. Except for Craig Kelly, who much as I love the boy, can't dance. And how adorable was Natalie commenting about how springy the floor in Blackpool was?

Meant to start writing after that, but lo, jaw ache of evil so I spent most of the evening curled up pressing that point and the point in the forehead that the pain spiked up to. Yay. Couldn't eat either. Also realised I really needed to plot a bit of the next scene out before i can get to act 2, so eked out a couple of bits of plotting for today.

New Sherlock Holmes trailer. In which there is not just fabulous explosions, Robert Downey Junior, Rachel McAdams, jude Law and Mark Strong, fabulous explosions and many jokes, but they're actively slashing themselves. MUST. SEE.

Didn't do too well last night. I was supposed to be starting the sex scene (word-count guzzler! idiocy!) but kept prevaricating and bulking out other bits instead. 1,000 words short of target, and just before falling asleep last night, started having the 'argh, I don't have enough plot to do the full 50k' wibbles. Morning, I gave the bunnies a thwack and pointed out that I'm nearly a fifth through and am nowhere near finished with act 1 of 4, possibly 5, and that's not including the shipwreck framing device.

Possibly didn't help that I kept being seduced by Harry Potter future aus. The satisfying kind about relationships and jobs and trying to cope with life and general fallout, that completely ignore the idiotic coda JKR wrote where everyone perpetuates the status quo. My only problem was the occasional mention of foodstuffs/things that you simply cannot get or aren't made in the UK. 'No-one would make that! Seriously, what the hell is that? ...You didn't just have an English character refer to zucchini. Cooked breakfast on a workday - don't make me laugh*.' A Britcheck, for the love of the FSM and Snape's L'Oreal contract. Is it so difficult?

*Cooked breakfast : not a usual feature of the average british kitchen on a weekday. Cereal or toast. Cooked breakfast is perfectly allowed on weekends, on holidar or if you're a builder/cab driver. We excel at cooked breakfast as a nation, it's just that the majority of the time if someone's eating it for breakfast they didn't get it cooked at home, they bought it.

Another 2k down, which Sam mostly spent thinking Ed may be attractive, but he's a tosser. Problem was I got distracted midpoint by going off to read a good third of In the City of the Seven Walls* (you know you've read something a few times too many when you're scrolling through for the exact point of the story you want to read it from, muttering 'nope, too early, so-and-so hasn't died yet') and all of With Six You Get Eggroll**. Which is kinda counterproductive to writing. Though at least when I went 'oh shit, stop reading City of the Seven Walls, it's 1:30am and you have to write and it's depressing you. This is not conducive to writing witty banter.', checking my word count it turned out I'd nearly passed the 2k mark and only had to write a couple more sentences to finish off the scene.

Pondering what percentage of slang that you pick up is on purpose/conscious and what is unconscious. I know I started using 'owt' because I liked it. And why do all the people who dismiss or pooh-pooh slang miss the fact that slang or dialect words often describe a specific concept that the original word doesn't quite encompass? (for the best example, see the English language and all the Norman French we incorporated - the French words translate as very similar, but because of the specific situation they came to be used in, came to mean slightly different things - or sometimes quite different in the case of mouton - just means 'sheep' in french, but due to it being used by the upper classes who only came into contact with sheep when it was on the plate, it became the word for the meat. Also see 'formal' speech.)

*Giant, complex, highly depressing SGA AU where Rodney and John get taken as slaves for two years and the repercussions of when they finally escape. Warning : not fun, and explores precisely all the ways that kind of thing fucks you up and how the military would deal.

**If you're a Due South fan and haven't read this, you fail. RayK and Fraser adopted a passel of kids sort-of-by-accident. It's a Speranza fic, which should provide you with all the info you need.

Um. for those of you not following me on twitter, I was standing next to Aiden Turner from Being Human on the train tonight for a bit.

making way down train, spot v. attractive looking bloke in a plaid shirt with his head down reading something and then brain goes '...hang on, that hair, pose and profile look... ohgod.' And he was reading a script. something about some bloke called Trellio, scene set in a prison. So I stood in the aisle, everyone else going past me, all presuming I'd given up on getting a seat, until I could figure out a way of asking if it was him without sounding like a stalker or tripping over my tongue. (turns out 'Um, excuse me, are you Aiden from Being Human?' works sufficiently)

Yes it was. He was going down to Bristol for the last block of Being Human filming. I went 'oh, cool, hope it goes well.' and got the hell out of dodge.

And, dear reader, he really is that pretty in real life.

Kinda wish i'd taken a surreptitious photo under the cover of checking my twitter.

nano - just over 4k as of last night. (with, of course the writing only kicking in properly at 11pm...) It means I'm on target of 2k a day, and it's respectable, but it's not exactly comfort zone. here's hoping if I keep that up that it'll get me to the comfort zone. My notepad is mostly detailed notes rather than actual writing at this stage. Need more actual sentences I can then expand.

Poking the notes on the two of them taking notice of each other. Shall have to just write the damn thing and figure out whether that all takes place in the afternoon and evening or over two days. Let's just hope they're wordy about it, whatever happens.

(and anyone who's never been watching this journal while I'm nano-ing, this will be pretty much all you'll get over the next month.)

got phone bill. it's got an extra £20's worth data charges to orange internet. given I'm supposed to have unlimited, see me ring up orange in rage. turns out my new contract didn't kick in for a good couple of weeks after I got the new phone and contract and the shop people didn't explain this. Customer service boy : 'go in, yell, and get a refund.' Orange shop people, your incompetence is fucking scary. (kind of a shame since the Camden Orange shop was a place of funny, charming, ridiculously good-looking phone geeks who remembered what problems you'd had with your phone three months ago. Clearly I was spoiled.)

Went to Michael Feinstein charity concert last night, (JB as featured guest, no prizes for guessing why I booked...) which was pretty good. apparently he's all about the Gershwin, Sinatra, etc. Was sat next to an American Barrowman fan who was in the country to see La Cage (her experience had no prop mishaps. Considering all the stories I've heard from the list o'nutjobs, this is practically unheard of) and do some sight-seeing who informed me that he's rather well-known over there. We were up in row L of the upper circle at the Palladium which is the ultimate of nosebleed seating - full view of the stage, sound's no problem, but we made the executive decision to wait until one minute pre-performance to scramble. I believe we ended up in Row F. Anyway. Most entertaining, fun banter, the boy believes in listing precisely who wrote and arranged each song, as well as the year and source if it's a musical. JB came on, hear the applause triple. Felt a bit sorry for Feinstein having to compete with the hometown boy for applause. They duetted on 'You're the Top', JB trotted out the usual of 'I won't send roses' and 'Anything Goes '. Which he managed to screw up the lyrics for. ....Seriously. I've heard him sing this song at FSM knows how many appearances. Admittedly a decent recovery, but *still*. Anyway, most entertaining, but I'm not sure it was quite worth the trip.

Nano, I of course spent most of the day procrastinating, staring at a blank screen or watching Strictly Come Dancing clips. As usual, speed typing only set in ten minutes before I was due to leave the house. Still, got 2k done which isn't too shoddy. Hopefully if I keep up 2k a day average I should be able to compensate for the days my social life kicks in. (and sacrificing small animals to warren_ellis in hopes that no more social life than I have advance warning of happens to me)

Sigh. Typical, writing bunnies only kick in five minutes before i'm due to leave the house. Still, i got 2k done. ...which is not great for a sunday and the first day of nano. Spent hlf my time watching strictly clips on youtube.

Radio 1 is playing a bunch of classic and modern live sessions from the Maida Vale recordings as it's the 75th anniversary. Huh. It used to be a roller rink? Seriously? However, due to them playing the older tracks, I've just found something. It turns out I've never heard David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust aside from the guitar licks and riffs. I was listening to the session and realised that it was completely unfamiliar until the bits of guitar kicked in. And, as ever, it's bloody obvious which bands spend more time playing live. They tend to be the ones who sound near-on identical to their records or better. Prodigy and New Order come off better vocally and on the improvising scale than some of the rock bands, interestingly...

Oh, and question for the tweeters : do you tweet more than you used to facebook? Noticed any difference in your lj posting habits?

Heh. It's that time of the year when commuter poppy wearing is starting to reach saturation. Noting the ratio of empty pins to still-intact poppies.

twitter's beta-ing a list function, basically identical to the groups filter function on lj, which makes me confused why some people are going 'errr.... confused on how to work this'. Have already sorted into buildings, artsnews and girlnumber9.

Watched Doom last night, inbetween Flash Forward and Edwardian Country House (which always gets me flabbergasted on just how deluded the upstairs lot are). Quite a good action film, but the sheer amount of backstory, setup and interesting and complex characters (I admittedly did go 'spotting the English actors... ooo, Ben Daniels?') made you feel that it really could've been longer. And sorry, gamers, but the Doom POV sequence made me giggle. Would've been better if that'd been an occasional shot interspersed throughout the film, not one chunk near the end.

I feel I'm sufficiently prepped for nano since this arrived in the post this morning.

Things from Hub3 : Ways we'd like Ianto back : Harkness and Jones (deceased).

Torchwood conventions have two barometers : The Barrowman Line and the Roderick Culver Scale. One is a measure of bad taste and filth, and the other is how shite a guest is.

Note to self : if you can only remember a couple of songs from a soundtrack, there is a *reason*. The rest were shite and/or unmemorable. See True Blood, which is 99% average/shite country, 1% awesome title track.

Question for the colonialists : at what point do the radio stations start switching to country music? Still traumatised by that time we drove Denver-Vegas-California.

And curious : If you had to cast me in a tv show or genre, what type of role would you cast me in? (AUs are also permissible)

Hub 3 : a very silly but also somewhat chilled for a Torchwood convention (earplugs only required a couple of times during the weekend).


( Bingley )

ETA : highlight of Sunday was actually the remote control Dalek with a tie on. (several people going 'remember the fic where a Dalek got infected by Ianto DNA?') Who metamorphosed into Pimp!Dalek later.

watched gosford park. Now have urge to write snarky upstairs downstairs fic. Technically not allowed for a week. :sulk:

Can someone explain the appeal of opera to me? The only times I seem to like it are when it's out of context and put in as an effect in another piece of music, like another instrument (seems to work best on soundtracks or dance music, which is another genre where the words don't often matter, the effect does). I can appreciate it the sheer technical effort and sound you can get out of it, but do *not* get it as a storytelling device. I can't imagine sitting through a musical where I'm supposed to be following a story and being provided with a translation or subtitles. Subtitles in film are one thing, but constantly having to glance down at a program and not being able to get all the vocal tricks and wordplay (let alone the fact that when I've heard amazing opera singers sing in english, their diction is kinda crap, so you don't get all the words anyway) - just no. Seriously. Does it work like mime/dance with a very specific soundtrack? (except the actors have to be static or moving slowly to produce that vocal power - no high-kicking dance sequences whilst belting out the main number here)

There are days you wish our geek overlords didn't know the exact same corners of the interwebs that we do.

Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright are happily discussing how much they like Hot Fuzz slash and how flattering they find it. (and linking to it on the Pit o' voles) Edgar said that he wrote Nicholas Angel/Danny Butterman slash before anyone else, and it was called Hot Fuzz.

My problem? Edgar started all this off by stating that he was craving X-factor RPS. That's why I need brain bleach.

ETA : Edgar, Nick and Simon continued by writing Hot Fuzz slash. perfectly formed Hot Fuzz slashfic in 140 characters or less. I especially liked the one where Danny watches the autumn leaves coming down and is thus looking forward to the rugby season.

:deep breath: Nano. think of your nano issues.

Taraljc is being very nice to me w/regard to valet-ing issues (I'm pretty sure it's set 1925-ish or later, so most of the younger staff were too young to join up. Somewhere in my head, it's a definite that they both lost elder brothers or uncles. Hmm. Must check Merchant Marine involvement in WW1) Things to check for random details : pay, and pay for a non-serving job. As well as what kind of jobs ex-servants went into if they left service. oh, and, er, valets would've travelled 3rd class on the train, right? I'm presuming they wouldn't have been travelling 1st with their masters unless they're Jeeves.

My main problem is trying to find accounts of shipwrecks of the period. I can find plenty of lists of books online, my problem is that my access to a library is restricted at the mo - getting to the british library and back in lunch hour is impossible, and I don't have the weekends free to get to my local. anyone got any good google tricks for online texts? or recommendations for books I could pick up from a bookshop? googling shipwrecks mostly gets me book lists or scuba diving locations.

ETA. Um. watching Shackleton counts as research, right? It's only set ten or so years earlier than the nano....

Reading Redcoats by Richard Holmes. Immensely detailed, lots of first person entries and snippets, but it's a severe slog. Got to about the halfway point, but sadly getting more convinced that what I'm probably going to do this time around is the the 1920s Upstairs Downstairs fic and refer back to this the next time I do a nano set in this world that has, er, more of a concrete plot. So in the meantime, going to finish this, watch Gosford Park again, look up transport details and valeting in the 1920s, and stuff about lifeboats and shipwrecks. taraljc, prepare to be harassed for obscure details.

Pubmeet, there was the usual geeking, general sneering at SGU, happy squee sounds about the recent Big Bang Theory eps, the fun and big plot holes that is Flash Forward, and laughing our heads off at the cover to Jim's new Trek novel. The cover is fucking hysterical; it looks like a Mills and Boon. Considering Jim is a specialist in robots, big actions sequences and military geekery, we have no idea what the publishers were thinking.

Beginning to think it's a truism that the minute you start properly researching one story idea, the other one that you'd pretty much decided to dump suddenly goes 'hey, I'm interesting and shiny and did I mention this fabulous framing device for the story I've just thought up?'

Seriously, brain, fixate on *one* and stick to it, will you?

Mmm. nanowrimo has a very shiny t-shirt for this year. come to mamma. But FSM, American Apparel, since when is a size 10-12 a *large* in skinny fit? At least the nanowrimo store does point out that the skinny fit are made for midgets. And the stickers are terribly shiny this year. I shall resist the stickers. I have nowhere to put them.

Got a new mic after sticking my old one through the washing machine (better safe than sorry). Slightly peeved since my last one was a little cheapo one for a fiver and the cheapest the tech shops had this time for one that looked almost identical was RRP £19.99. My 'you're kidding' did get them down to a tenner, though. testing by getting Shel to read out MS numbers and me humming pipe tunes.

oh, there's nothing like spending most of the day alternating between restless dozing and worshipping the porcelain god. With added 'I really need to put the towels in the dryer' :falls asleep again for an hour: 'Whoops.' At least I was working from home and didn't have to brave the tube. Now I'm at work and just feel vaguely blegh and a bit cold.

...Which is getting worse. Joy. Please let it bugger off.

Watched Stargate Universe pilot. Overall conclusion : meh.

Dear writers/Skiffy, a pilot should not have you going 'is something interesting going to happen? Will someone get a half-decent personality? Or one that's not a cliché? ...I can't even summon the energy/interest to turn this off. Robert Carlyle, not even you can save this, and even then your character's only half-interesting without anyone else to play off. And will that stupid half-trained medic stop WHINING?'

Seriously. You're on a dying spaceship which only has x amount of hours' worth of air left. You should be able to generate some sense of urgency. When it gets to the end of the ep and there isn't even a cliffhanger or hook, that pilot has FAILED. Pilots : should a) stand on their own as a single ep and b) have you going 'ooo, can I see more?' at the very least. The only character I could see that came off well was Ming Na's diplomat and I have a horrible suspicion that it's because they didn't give her enough lines to get boring. Oh, sorry, I forgot the requisite SG-1 cameos. They were funny, interesting, created a sense of urgency/full on deadpan/sent you into giggles. FSM, even *Walter*'s cameo was more interesting than all the new characters. Robert Carlye's character in his bit of scene with RDA was great. Like I said. WASTED.

In other news, Flash Forward is succeeding in the 'ooo, want *more*' with interesting characters and fun dialogue but not necessarily going to want to re-watch it. We're classifying it as the new early Lost, with added bonus that we're guaranteed to see the resolution of all the flashes at the end of the series. But dammit. Why do American productions always make Jack Davenport look so hangdog? Seriously, that is one very pretty man in the right situation and in even better situations go 'yoink'. Please let him do supercilious at least once since you're letting him keep his English accent.

Out there, there has to be John Constantine/Torchwood fic. Or at the very least John Constantine/Dr Who fic. Seriously. British supernatural fandoms that're all about the investigating and enigmatic figures who like pissing people off and are really fucking good at talking themselves out've situations with a fairly high death count. And come on, John Constantine and Jack Harkness are damn well made for running into each other and at least bitching about stuff or mutual leering at stuff. Bisexual conartists with an unhealthy attachment to long coats who survive whilst everyone else around them dies need each other. Sam can't be the only person who's written it, surely.

Darkisrising.com is available, having been released from the film studio fuck-up.

Self, you are not allowed to buy it and then gift it to Susan Cooper just to prevent further adaptation fuck-ups.


ooooo. Shelter icons. http://andieshep.livejournal.com/106355.html#cutid1/ Y HALO THAR pretty surfer boys in love without angst.

twitter : possibly one of the few places where I'll sigh and go 'they're really funny, but they post waaay too much'.

trying to decide whether a refrain in the Merlin ST is nicked wholesale from LOTR or if I'm just remembering it wrong. Problem is, would have to listen to the entire fricking LOTR ST to find out whether this is so.

Pondering how difficult the tin whistle is to learn to play decently, since it looks infinitely less complex than a guitar and more portable. Not to mention more tuneful and socially acceptable than the recorder I tortured my parents with as a kid.

Julie Fowlis concert was utterly fab. Better than recordings, though mostly due to the bouncy, everyone being funny and her presence - live its very similar to the recordings, which means there was very little faffing about. Oh, and she's rather preggers. Good thing that she's only got a few more dates to go up in scotland. Band kept constantly updating us on the footie scores whenever they went off stage (you'll be pleased to know that . Irish centre in Hammersmith has great acoustics, even if you could only fit a couple of hundred people (seated) in there, and I have no idea why she was nervous about it being sold out. From what I heard from other audience members, she's played far larger venues. Observation : there is a fine but distinct line between the songs you clap to, the songs you drum your feet to, and the ones you do both to. In perfect rhythm, natch. Requisite drumming of feet for encore. One does wonder where this came from, since yes, you do clap when asking for an encore, but it's not quite as widespread as drumming of feet.

Hammersmith tube : out to confuse the hell out of you. Couldn't find a local area map in the station, so using google maps was kind of useless as you had no idea what street you'd exited on or what side of the station, as there aren't any visible street signs. Even when the venue is all of two minutes from the station. Thank the FSM for kebab shops.

I have sudden marmite taste in mouth. Considering I haven't eaten marmite since saturday, this is very odd.

mackerel works, it appears. Fish once again is my bitch.

Potatoes, on the other hand... :growl: I firmly believe the native americans are laughing at us. LAUGHING. They turned out okay, but stabbing the damn things to see if they've boiled is fucking frustrating and boiling takes forever. Let us not mention trying to fry after. Turning golden. HAH.